


Always Foxtrot, Always John

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [45]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: any Whedonverse. any/any (or any&any). How long we've been as one. They ask me a question, and you answer it. Sam is back at the SGC from Area 51 and is confronted with the reality of imprints when she asks Rodney a question and John answers. Set post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Foxtrot, Always John

The first time it happened, Sam didn't know what to think. She wandered into the lab, still scanning over the notes on her data pad, and asked Rodney a question about physics.  
  
It was John Sheppard who answered.  
  
She blinked and stared at him, and he blinked and stared at her, and then he said,  
  
"Rodney went for some coffee and a donut. Blood sugar was getting low."  
  
"Sorry, I was a little distracted," Sam said. John had retired as a full-bird colonel, but the SGC kept him on as a civilian consultant because, well, he'd been the military commander of Atlantis, and his knowledge of the city itself was unparalleled. None of the subsequent military commanders, who had all been natural gene carriers, had the relationship he'd had with the city.  
  
"Anything I can help you with till Rodney gets back?" John asked.  
  
It was a fair question, because he'd answered her physics question right.  
  
"I, uh –"  
  
"You were asking Rodney a question, and Rodney answered. Sort of," John said.  
  
The imprint thing. Everyone knew about it, sort of. No one really talked about it. Sam had been tempted to watch the recordings of the senate hearings, because the scientist inside of her was dying to know how it all worked, but she respected John as a soldier, and he deserved the right to have what privacy he could.  
  
"Woolsey used to do it all the time," John said. "Summon me to the control tower, ask me something I shouldn't really know or be able to do, but...I'm me. Foxtrot John Sheppard. And it's kind of nice, for the others. We've been together for so long. Someone asks me a question, and if one of them can answer it, why not?"  
  
"Right," Sam said slowly. She turned the data pad around to show him. "What about these calculations?"  
  
John's brow furrowed. "Those are a little beyond me and Rodney. The person who could best answer you is Joe, though."  
  
Sam nodded. "Oh, okay. Can I, uh, speak to Joe?"  
  
John smiled wryly. "Funny you should ask. Joe isn't in here anymore. Cloned his body, gave him his own life. Keller and Lam say he needs as couple of days to adjust before he can come back in to work. But if you wait till Rodney gets back –"  
  
"You said this was beyond him."  
  
"Beyond the imprint I have that was based partially on neural scans of him. But who knows – the real him might have gotten smarter since then." John shrugged. "I can still play Prime/Not Prime, though. Promise."  
  
Sam grinned, rattled off a number.  
  
John answered correctly, and Sam wondered, in her command of Atlantis, who she'd spoken to at any given time whenever she'd interacted with John.  
  
And she realized, after working with both John and Rodney for the rest of the afternoon, that he had always been both Foxtrot and John.


End file.
